Onto the ice, onto the frozen ponds

After last year's hiatus, the cold snap that's brought Warsaw a proper winter has at last frozen over the ponds to the point where it's safe to walk, ski or indeed cycle over them. No sign of car tyre tracks, as in previous winters - nor is this likely, as Wednesday's forecast is for rain and +4C high. Between 01:45 and 07:45 this morning the lowest temperature recorded at the airport nearby was -20C.

Time then, to cautiously descend upon the ice. Below: many have gone before, but none have ventured so far out. As always, caution is the watchword. Listening for cracking below at every footstep, pausing as a plane flies over (the noise drowns out any potential warning sounds), placing one's weight evenly, steadily.

Below: the gaps in the rushes on the far shore show how far I've come. My ambition to get to the north end of the ponds the back way is thwarted by the growth of the reeds. Over the past three years, they have completely encroached on the open water that used to stretch from here to the end. No more will I be able to go where the herons nest. Swathes of pond have in effect ceased to be pond and have become marshland.

Below: this waterway, leading west towards ulica Trombity, is still clear. Hares' tracks are visible in the snow. I couldn't see the wild boar tracks that were here in previous winters. How long before this open water is also choked with reeds.

Below: the gabions that form part of the retention ponds to the west. You can see that the water level is low; usually it is above the dark line halfway up the gabions. On the horizon, the wood where the herons nest. No longer accessible on foot without a machete to cut through the dense reed beds.

As I made my way back home I pondered on whether last night's low of -20C wouldn't become noted as the lowest temperature recorded in Warsaw this century. Many Poles who remember communist times will have lived through the 'zima stulecia' of 1978/79, which saw record snowfall in Warsaw, 70cm (27 inches) on 31 January. More recently there was the less snowy but record-breakingly cold winter of 1986/87, where the lowest-ever temperature in Warsaw was recorded, -31.0C.

This time last year:

A walk through lights-out London

This time two years ago:
Mid-Jan pictorial round-up

This time six years ago:
UK migration and the NHS

This time nine years ago:
Miserable depths of winter

This time ten years ago:
From - a short story (Part 1)

This time 11 years ago:
A month until Lent starts

This time 12 years ago:
World's biggest airliner over Poland

This time 13 years ago:
More pre-Lenten thoughts

Peak winter, may there be many more such as this!

And here it is - the coldest day, and the most beautiful day of the year so far. Sunshine, a frost of -13C, and plenty of fresh snow. It's been a long time, but days like this raise the spirit immensely. The light bouncing off the snow raises serotonin levels higher than straight sunlight, there is believed to be a link between this and mood*.

Below: two photos from Jeziorki's ponds, making the case for this being Warsaw's most beautiful suburb.

Below: footprints on the ice suggest it's safe to walk on - I'd give it another frosty night (having tried at the northern end and heard ominous sounds beneath my feed as I did so).

Below: across the tracks, watching a southbound Koleje Mazowieckie train on its way from W-wa Dawidy to W-wa Jeziorki. Behind me, work on the S7 extension has come to a complete halt.

Below: corner of ul. Dumki, with tourist trail (szlak turystyczny) MZ-5242-z leading off into the distance.

Below: ul. Trombity is safer to walk on - no ploughs, no grit; the snow somehow not turning into a sheet of ice when driven over by cars. And today, drivers are abiding by the 30km/h speed limit, even as they practice their handbrake turns.

It's been four years since Warsaw has seen such a combination of frost and snow; such weather events - which used to be the norm in Poland over the winter - are destined to become rarer as we change our climate. Grateful for the day's weather, I made the most of it, 11,000 paces, best part of an hour and half. Clothing for -14C? Above all, I'm in need of a new pair of gloves, my old pair, bought from a street stall on Krakowskie Przedmieście many years ago have holes and are generally too thin for such frosts. Otherwise, three layers including a lined jacket, pair of corduroy trousers and pair of suede, fur-lined boots is good for the job. Oh, and cashmere woollen watch-cap and face mask that goes down to the neck.

This time last year:

London's timeless charms

This time two years ago:
Familiarity, music and memory

This four three years ago:
On taxation and (national) defamation

This time eight years ago:
Where's Britain going to be in Europe?

This time ten years ago:
Jeziorki under water

This time 11 years ago:
In a nutshell - the best science book I've ever read

This time 12 years ago:
Flashback to communist times

This time 13 years ago:
Pre-dawn Ursynów

Winter approaches its zenith

Winter is looking better as better as more snow - and the temperature - falls. Today's walk pretty much follows the steps of yesterday. Below: the 'foodstuffs & industrial shop' on ulica Baletowa. Christmas lights up until Candlemas on 2 February, in the old tradition. I'm glad this independent retailer is open and I pop in from time to time for supplies for my walks.

Below: the cemetery gates on ul. Jeziorki. The white-red-white stripes are not a display of solidarity with Belarus, rather they are markers for the tourist trail (szlak turystyczny) MZ-5143-c, which like trail MZ-5142-z (white-green-white) begins at W-wa Dawidy station.

Below: a LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner on final approach to Warsaw Okęcie. Beyond the treeline, over the railway tracks and the S79 expressway and ul. Wirażowa, over the fence, touchdown in 40 seconds or so.

Below: the ponds are icing up nicely. I can stand on the edge, the ice will now hold my weight, but if I bounce on my knees I can hear cracking. By Monday morning it should be firm enough to walk across, after two nights well below -10C.

Below: ul. Dumki - almost home. This is the asphalted stretch of Dumki, though one would never guess.

The shifting of budgets to central government away from local government is making itself felt; last year there was no snow so the lack of snowploughs and salt went unnoticed, but this is the first winter when ul. Trombity was left unsnowploughed. The result for pedestrians is very slippery ice, packed hard by car tyres. Safest to walk on the grass verge, there being no pavement along the length of the street.

This time two years ago:
Signals from space

This time three years ago:
Ice - proceed with utmost care

This time four years ago: 
In which I see a wild boar crossing the frozen ponds

This time five years ago:
Communicating the government's case in English

This time seven years ago:
Thinking big, American style. Can Poles do it?

This time eight years ago:
Inequality in an age of economic slowdown 

This time nine years ago:
The Palace of Culture: Tear it down?

This time 11 years ago:
Conquering Warsaw's highest snow mounds

This time 12 years ago:
Flashback on way to Zielona Góra

This time 13 years ago:
Ursynów, winter, before sunrise 

Winter, at last, in all its glory

FOR MY BROTHER MAREK, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS BIRTHDAY

Two years waiting, at at long last - proper winter. Yesterday, 13 January, it arrived - time to catch it. Briefly, the sun appeared - but to the north, more snow clouds gather. The snows will help raise the water level of the ponds - barely visible to the left of the photo.

Across the tracks, looking at Jeziorki with my back to where the new S7 extension is cutting through the fields between Jeziorki and Dawidy Bankowe. Dead goldenrod and tansy dominates in this fallow field.

Below: an abandoned orchard on ulica Kórnicka - the inaccessible part of the street, cut off by the railway line at one end and the S7 extension at the other. I dare say fruit-growing won't return here.

Today's walk was at twilight; I set off half an hour before sunset. Below: the northern end of ul. Kórnicka, where it meets ul. Baletowa. I am reminded of a Christmas cake decoration as a child - a dark-green fir tree sprayed with white, sitting in a red wooden pot, about two inches high. Every year, my mother would place it in the white icing on top of the marzipan coating the rich fruitcake. 

Below: Is this rural Buckinghamshire? No - this is ul. Sporna, less than 11km (6.8 miles) from the centre of Warsaw, looking north-west

Ul. Sporna, like ul. Kórnicka, is also cut in half by the railway line; no longer is there a level crossing even for pedestrians. On the other side of the tracks, Sporna continues to Dawidy via Dawidy Zwyczajne (the bit of Dawidy that's within Warsaw's borders). Below: a train towards town has just departed from W-wa Dawidy station.

Below: back on ul. Trombity, winterously gorgeous as night falls.

Winter will stay with Warsaw and Mazowsze for a few more days, with heaps of new snow and a night-time low of -17C forecast for Saturday night, followed by a daytime high of -12C on Sunday.

This time seven years ago:
The simple beauty of gov.uk

This time eight years ago:
My brother at 50 - and as a child

This time nine years ago:
First snow in the Old Town

This time ten years ago:
Blood on the tracks, again

This time 11 years ago:
Views from Książęca footbridge - winter and summer

This time 12 years ago:
The Most Poniatowskiego

Meagre, disappointing snow

I opened the blinds on Sunday morning expecting a garden covered with purest white snow - instead, all there was on the ground was the thinnest coating of soggy flakes. And so I headed for Chynów, hoping that the +1C in Jeziorki would somehow turn into a -1C in Jakubowizna, which received a more generous overnight snowfall. It did not. Thirty kilometres south, the weather was the same as it was in Warsaw; bleak, thin, damp snow. On arrival at the działka the kitchen thermometer read 5.5C, the one in the front room read 6.0C. Time to heat the place up, wheel out the motorbikes and turn the engines over, wheel them back in and go for a walk.

Below: the path to Adamów Rososki.

Below: the path to Jakubowizna.

Left: apples left to freeze, an unharvested orchard, Jakubowizna. Elsewhere, orchards have been pruned, or cut down and the land ploughed up awaiting new saplings. An apple tree is optimised for eight or nine seasons, then the trees need replacing. Although it was a good year for apples, the pandemic kept many pickers away. 

Back home for a sauna - an excellent investment in the house in Jeziorki when it was being built was a small room with a fitted Swedish Tylo dry sauna. Just the thing to warm up bones and get the sweat pores open. Two or three times a week from late October through to early April.

The tenth day of 2021, and other than a few hours of wan sunshine breaking through thin clouds on the afternoon of Tuesday 5 January, it had been uniformly dismal. A week and one day to go until Blue Monday - the so-called 'most depressing day of the year'. Spring seemed an eternity away but winter won't properly come either. Pumping out the exercises gets the endorphins flowing around the body, a short-term pick-me-up; a quick burst of 30 press-ups or 10 pull-ups

I opened the blinds yesterday to see dazzling sunshine! All day long the sky was blue - sadly work required me at my home-office desk, numerous calls (mostly Brexit related from bewildered exporters); apart from a short stroll down to Lidl for seniors' hours shopping, I hadn't the time for a daylight stroll to make the most of the sunshine. An evening walk under the stars, the ponds freezing over, had a positive effect; though the sun had gone down, the frosty evening lifted my spirits

This morning, though there's thin cloud, for the first time this year I felt a sense of the hope that spring is imminent, maybe a dozen or so weeks away, but it will come. I had a strong flashback to the early months of 1977, as a student living in Coventry, taking a bus to the edge of town and walking a disused railway line - that same sense of a spring coiled, primed, ready to emerge, powerful - bringing with it new energy and hope.

Covid is a downer, but compared to the darkness and gloom of a miserable sunless, snowless day in winter, the threatening pandemic is in the background, something to guard against. But overcast skies, drizzle, and damp cold (as opposed to a crisp frost) I find hard to deal with. Snow promised overnight with a light frost, so tomorrow should be nice...

Bring me sunshine.

This time last year:
The Inequality Paradox - a summing up

This time two years ago:
Familiarity, tradition and identity

This time three years ago:
Black hat merry-go-round 
(I've found four so far this season)

This time four years ago:
Skarzysko-Kamienna and Starachowice, by train

This time five years ago:
The world mourns the loss of David Bowie

This time seven years ago:
Where's the snow?

This time nine years ago:
Two drink-free days a week, British MPs urge

This time ten years ago:
Depopulating Polish cities?

This time 11 years ago:
Powiśle on a winter's morning

This time 12 years ago:
Sunny, snowy Jeziorki

New sewers, new estate

Closed off for four months, ulica Pozytywki is open again (below). Under the newly-relaid paving lie new laid sewer pipes, connecting houses on the street (existing and new) to the sewer main running along ul. Karczunkowska. Some road closures in Poland are in name only - this one was serious. A hole in the ground, some two to three metres deep, stretched from the wall on the left to the fence on the right, with no pedestrian access. This meant my regular walk to Lidl has had to be along the main roads rather than down the quiet ul. Pozytywki and ul. Cymbalistów; noisier, more dangerous and an additional 400m or so along which to carry the shopping home.

Looking back from the junction of ul. Pozytywki and ul. Cymbalistów, the pond to the left. The construction crew that has been on-site since the summer is packing up. Final details are being sorted.

Houses and farms south of ul. Karczunkowska are now connected to the town drains. As is the new estate, which has appeared on the quadrangle of land between Pozytywki, Cymbalistów, Katarynki (to the south) and Czarkowskiego (to the east). 

From my observations, I'd guess that the majority of the builders on this project are from Ukraine, judging from the electro-folk pumping out of loudspeakers on the site.

A dense development ("Each house with 340m² of garden!" shouts the billboard advertising it) of  neo-moderne townhouses; I think it will sell. This is still Warsaw, so it has the cachet of actually being in the capital rather than some peripheral village with no infrastructure. The bus stops of ul. Puławska are within easy walking distance, as is the local Lidl and Rossmann. For young families wanting to escape a block of flats, this should be ideal - a trend the pandemic is likely to reinforce. But just look at the mud!

Mud is a feature of edge-of-town Warsaw. Below: this is ul. Dumki - look it up on any map of the city. The authorities ought to either ban all motorised traffic (which churns it up) or get the street asphalted. But this is disgraceful. Note the white-green-white markers on tree and post, denoting a szlak turystyczny - tourist trail. Good luck with that!

UPDATE 16 January: It had to happen, didn't it... the same puddle as seen above, froze over a week later and got covered in snow; it lay in wait for a car to come this way - and it did. The driver abandoned it to seek help. Abandoned it in the middle of a Warsaw street, the one marked on your Google Maps app as leading from ul. Kórnicka to ul. Trombity.

Evening falls, and a train rushes south heading for Piaseczno. At least the rail infrastructure is sound.

Below: bonus photo from the recently-released orthophotographic map of Warsaw - this is the shadow of our house on ul. Trombity and the neighbours' house plus our gardens thrown onto the newly ploughed corduroy fields. Taken in April, before the trees came into leaf. 

This time last year:

The ultra-rich - deserving, or not

This time five years ago:
Globalisation and its part in PiS's return to power

This time six years ago:
UK overtakes France as the world's fifth-largest economy

This time ten years ago:
Wetlands winter meltdown

This time 11 years ago:
Winter's walk to work

This time 12 years ago:
Winter drivetime, Jeziorki North

Slippers, e-commerce and the local economy

Over the years, my personal preferences have narrowed down, I'm not tempted by novelty and buy what I know. Slippers. Since moving to Poland 23 years ago, I have always bought Polish-made sheepskin slippers. For winter, they are ideal, keeping the feet as warm as toast. My previous pair of slippers being on the point of expiry, I bought myself a new pair - and here's the novelty - I bought them online. 

Normally, I know where to find purveyors of góralskie (mountain-folk) produce, from slippers to oscypek cheese - they usually hawk their wares close to mainline railways stations. Not wishing to venture into town, I looked online, and found myself the exact pair (always one size smaller that usual, to ensure a tight, snuggly fit). Ordered on Saturday, they arrived this morning by courier. It feels so good to insert my feet into the soft tightness of a brand new pair of these slippers! The nearest thing your feet will experience to the sensation of stepping barefoot into a Rolls-Royce.

The manufacturer is Polish - Produkcja Pantofli i Galanterii BABA, in Łącko, a small town in the hills south-west of Nowy Sącz, more famous for its (illegal) śliwowica łącka, a home-distilled plum-based spirit that's 70% alcohol by volume. I am delighted that such traditional shoe manufacturers still prosper, and that e-commerce brings their products to my door without having to step into a pandemic. Or into the rain.

The slippers are identical in pattern to the traditional 'zakopianka' slipper. To keep their shape in storage and in transit, the slippers are traditionally stuffed rigid with sheepskin off-cuts, thus also solving the manufacturer's problem of waste disposal. Prices are higher than the pair I bought back in 2008 (44.75 złotys or £8.95 today, compared to 30zł in 2008 and 20zł in 1997). Incidentally, these can be bought online in the UK, where the same pair will set you back £30.

Slip Into Something More Comfortable

Here's the pair I bought in Kraków in 2008; another similar pair served me from 2013-19. The latest pair is my seventh since arriving in Poland in 1997.

"Now far away/In slipper'd ease"

I am the more delighted with these slippers, knowing that they are locally made in Poland using locally sourced materials, and not by eight-year-old Uyghurs in slave-labour camps in remote corners of Xinjiang province. And the delivery mechanism is also a matter of local pride...

I bought the slippers on e-commerce platform Allegro, a company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange; they were delivered this morning by a courier from InPost, also listed on the WSE. I chose home delivery, but I could have also picked up my parcel from the local InPost paczkomat (parcel locker). I have ordered a new Panasonic beard trimmer from Allegro which should arrive at the paczkomat round the back of my local Lidl, 837m from home (it says). We shall see how that goes. The old Panasonic beard trimmer was bought 21 years ago and has finally given up the ghost.

This time last year:
The Inequality Paradox - Part I

This time two years ago:
From West London to South Warsaw

This time five years ago:
Anger and hate have no place in political discourse

This time seven years ago:
Is Conservatism rural or urban in nature?

This time eight years ago:
Poland's roads get slightly less deadly

This time nine years ago:
It's expensive being rich in Warsaw 

This time 11 years:
Winter commuting in colour and black & white

This time 12 years ago:
Zamienie in winter

This time 13 years ago:
Really cold (-12C at night)
[last night's low: +4C, up +2C on 2020.]

"communication/This is the gift you must not lose"

Another New Year, this one quite different to any I've experienced. Vaccine hope balances against the news that Covid-19 cases are once again rising at a fearsome pace. 

Another New Year, and so - resolutions. Over the years I am getting better, and stronger, but still feel guilt at time wasted, time spent on irrelevant or futile pursuits. It's far easier to stop doing things you shouldn't be doing than it is to actually do the things you should do. This is all under control. All the paces and press-ups - yes, that's working, but I'm doing those to keep body and soul together, in good form, for longer.

For why? What's the purpose of a longer life? It is to fulfil human potential. To observe, to discover, to share those observations and discoveries, to share insight, to seek truth and beauty through art, to hone one's philosophy of life. To write, take photographs, take notes, put it down for posterity. 

I must write more, communicate more. It is easy during these times of lockdown to "yawn/And be withdrawn/And watch the world go by". A spiral of not noticing lack of human contact until solitude becomes the default; a lack of engaging, intellectual conversations to expand new horizons - new ideas that build on existing ideas and stop them from getting entrenched. Fixed ideas are no good; stale thinking, repeating tired old nostrums, prevent us from reaching out towards an unfolding universe. 

Yet these are good times for isolation - technology gives us such marvellous tools - tools that we could not have imagined just 30 years ago. Having a Zoom call before Christmas with old friends in England was marvellous - obviously not a patch on being with them all in person, but an excellent substitute in these times. Twitter is good fun as well as being a replacement for TV news. But it can become a great time waster. Reading and writing is better. I currently have three books (on Blurb) on the go, for self-publishing. These days we can all publish, produce films, create art - the tools are at hand to everyone, the barriers of old have been torn down by technology. All that's needed is a voice and something to say. I'm belatedly getting there - I know where I'm going and what I want to say (eventually) - it's just a matter of Getting Round To It.

This year's Lent starts in six and half weeks, and being six and half weeks long, it's 13 weeks to Easter - a quarter of the year. An early Easter this year, falling on 4 April. As I did last year, I shall use the 46 days of Lent to examine in depth my spiritual development. There is a goal, I know I can do it. What starts in Lent has to expand to fill the rest of the year, crowding out the time wasted.

[Ah - a dream book has been initiated. Every morning after waking up, I shall spend a few minutes jotting down what I remembered from my dreams.]

This time last year:
Wealth and inequality - an introduction

This time two years ago:
Gratitude for a peaceful 2018

This time three years ago:
Fighting laziness - a perennial resolution

This time four years ago:
A Year of Round Anniversaries

This time five years ago:
Walking on frozen water

This time six years ago:
Fireworks herald 2015 in Jeziorki

This time seven years ago
Jeziorki welcomes 2014

This time eight years ago:
LOT's second Dreamliner over Jeziorki

This time ten years ago:
New Year's coal train 

This time 12 years ago:
Welcome to 2009!

This time 13 years ago:
Happy 2008!